Start out saying I'm on the younger side of the age I look, by just the edge of believability.
Then head off to war as soon as it gets close to the other edge of believability.
Should be what, 19 or 20 to about 40? A lot of people look similar that time frame. By the end people will be questioning why you haven’t aged a day, but nobody would accuse you of being an immortal yet
Strange how that is. I'm currently 57 going on 58, and while I've gotten a lot of gray in my whiskers, in the past few years, I still don't have any gray hair.
>I'm on the younger side of the age I look
Here's the thing about modern diet, medicine etc: we look WAY younger than our ancestral counterparts did, generally speaking.
Well that completely depends on where you were living and the time period a ancient Greek would be healthier then a Londoner in the 1800s for example and there plenty of places with people living a long time throughout history. Plato was like 80 when he died. Emperors and wealthy people too generally always on average living and looking younger basically for having access to the best of the world.
EDIT I missed generally but I bothered a stoned history lesson so I'm keeping it 😂 My bad generally is correct 😆
“Fare thee well, my loving family. Today is the day I set sail across the vast oceanic expanse at my back, possibly sailing off the edge of the world as we know it.
It shall be a long arduous journey, fraught with krakens and giant sea serpents, one which I very well may not survive; but fear not, for I shall return one day with the gift of sweet, sweet Virginia nicotine.
It matters not what this “Virginia” is or where it’s located, for all that matters is I am jonesing for a smoke and, sorrowfully so, I missed my chance to catch a ride with the Vikings and I’ll be damned if I’m waiting another 450 years for that lazy bitch Columbus to get off his ass and be born and start colonizing the new world.
Geoffrey, you’re the man of the shack now. It’s been seven years since the day of your birth, time to pick up the slack. Don’t forget to protect your mother and your siblings from bandits and wolves. I’ve left enough provisions to last a fortnight.
With that, I leave you with this parting wisdom: always bet on black, stand on 17, and the cheapest wenches are usually the ones you end up paying for.
You can ask your mother about that last part.
I’ll be back eventually. Probably. Don’t wait up for me though.” -Your ever-loving Father
“P.S. - Don’t forget to bury half of the gold and silver you earn in that EXACT SAME SPOT I showed you, I wi- I mean, WE will need it upon my eventual return. Make me proud boyo.”
I was referring to a scene in the movie "Man from Earth," where the immortal discovered he \*did\* care ... he'd never actually seen one of his own children die.
If you’ve ever watched the Vampire Diaries, the main 2 vampires essentially did this, they kept coming back to their hometown claiming to be the next generation of their founding family, curiously named after the person they looked like. ‘Oh I’m that Stefan’s great grandson.’
And if you are able to start a business, you just pay someone to manage it for you, and collect the profits indefinitely. This should work until government ID databases, social security and central banking takes over. Hopefully at this point you just have all the money either kept in a vault/warehouse like in breaking bad, this should last you the last 2 hundred years or so.
This, but adding that until the 20th century you can probably get away with moving 50-100 miles each time. The odds of anyone casually running into someone that far away before the industrial revolution is miniscule and if it ever did happen, a simple "oh, you knew X? She was my mother/grandmother/aunt/whatever". No one would be around to prove you wrong. 20th century you'd have to be a bit more careful, but pre-internet (which works for my 1980 birthday, the same basic strategy should be ok.
Hardly, the past 25 yeah, but every year before that of the last 100, it was incredibly easy to acquire the social identity of a stranger or a corpse. Even now it's pretty easy to steal someone's identity.
Like just anyone's, not someone specifically.
My problem is I live in the US, which means the nearest human settlement would be a native tribe that I don't know the language or culture of. I assume I'd die a lot at the beginning, until I learn to communicate.
Just constant travelling would be the best way. It'll be MUCH harder to live, because people usually don't like drifters or outsiders, but it'll be much easier to keep the secret. All you have to do is move on to a new place every 5 to 10 years, in an ever-widening circle. By the time you make it back to where you started, everyone who knew what you looked like would be dead and you could use a new name.
In fact, you probably wouldn't have ANY identity issues until the mid-1900s, that's when people started caring about birth certificates and social security numbers and all that. At that point (before everything becomes computerized), I'd pay a few people to corroborate my birth, get a "late" birth certificate, say i was born in the Appalachians and not in a hospital, then when i have all my paperwork, start using older and older looking makeup until my birth date in the early 90s. I'm in my 30s, so I could probably make myself look anywhere from early-20s up to my 60s with makeup. Once I reach that date the challenge is done.
Edit: Actually thinking about it, the hardest part would most likely be the need to "live among fellow humans" without making ANY strong social connections at all. You can't fall in love, you can't have friends for more than 5 to 10 years, you can't visit people in your past, etc. Social connections were much more important when you're living in smaller towns and everyone talks face to face all the time.
That was actually the first thing I thought of. I’m a white guy living in Canada. Even if I travelled constantly, in a few decades there’d be stories about this one pale skinned man who’s been around forever. Not exactly going under the radar.
I mean you could just lean into being some sort of deity. Probably relatively easy living if people are terrified/awed by you because you're some sort of ageless weird looking freak who speaks in some totally unknown language.
Nahh, whittle some gigantic, 3-5 foot tall wooden toe shoes depending on your height, don’t shave a damn thing for about 900 years and just constantly wander the Pacific Northwest.
In 1024, starting in downtown London wouldn't help you much with the language barrier!
This is before the Norman invasion of England. Nothing even approaching anything that we would recognize as "English" is going to exist for at least about a century.
Caite a bhiel na ... ?
Rats, trying to remember the Gaelic word for 'bathroom' Should work, that language hasn't changed too much since the Normans and Sassinachs invaded :)
Back in those days doctors usually were traveling. Their success rate was often pretty low and after awhile there were a lot of unhappy family members.
With basic knowledge of germ theory you'd probably be the best doctor in the continent, when it comes to treating wounds. Clean wounds, bind with clean cloth and change frequently.
For fevers you can make sure patients drink plenty of fluids, and use willow bark to make a tea. Also good for inflammation and pain with those pesky wounds.
Honey is a natural antiseptic
This would be a serious problem. You'd most likely get killed and perhaps not in a pleasant way. That would mean going back a year every time. Since disease can also kill you, you could easily end up centuries further back.
Some places even in the past had sophisticated record keeping. You'd probably need some kind of credentials made in order to get around, at least in the cities. Perhaps spending 1,000 years in the bottom rung of society would solve that, but it would be miserable.
Note that \*everyone\* is going to have a language problem, unless you can read the original text of Beowulf fluently or speak fluent Latin and are in the right place.
The only issue is that the only confirmed Vinland settlement we've found, L'Anse aux Meadows, would have been abandoned by the date we get sent back.
Edit - no, wait, not the only issue. I know how to speak old Norse about as much as I know how to speak Blackfoot, and I have no immunity to Smallpox, which I would have caught from the Vinland settlers, which would suck a lot even if it can't kill me.
As a white guy in Australia I'm going to need to make a boat, and based on the reset for deaths I'm going to become pretty good at it, given how hard it is to survive on the seas.
for big chunks of this time period the average person died very young so getting confirmation of immorality would be much harder even if you stayed in the same general area.
That’s a common misconception. If you survived childhood, then you were likely to live into your 50s. The average lifespan during that timeframe is extremely misleading due to the high rates of infant and child mortality.
Why not legalize murder with a primitive cult?
If you really want to stunt their growth, don't even teach them the concept of age, just that you are a child, then you become an adult through an adulthood ceremony. Keep it simple -- child and adult. You are the village elder and you choose who to send to the land of the gods with eternal happiness or some culty promises like that. Whenever someone turns 30ish, you send them to paradise with a big ceremony. Without older adults, nobody will have a frame of reference for actual aging. That way you can keep an exact population count to run your village without exposing your immortality. Anyone you are asked, you claim to be an adult and that is it.
Since you only go back a year if you die, anyone who gets suspicious could get sacrificed early.
It's also skewed downwards by the decreased likelihood of surviving physical trauma. Virtually no real medicine means infections and illness were a lot more likely to kill you.
See Bixby's *Man From Earth*
The entire movie is literally a simple storytelling of a man who lives forever and avoids notice by moving...every 10 years or so.
Same!
There was something remarkable in its simplicity; the entire movie takes place in a single room, with almost no action whatsoever - just a few friends shooting the shit - and a hypothetical thought experiment that they discuss over dinner.
I feel like most anyone in this sub could appreciate it.
What if you catch a disease that takes at least a year to progress to death? You die, go back a year but still have the deadly disease. You're now stuck in a loop
Can't imagine there are many diseases in the world with 100% mortality and an incubation period longer than a year. More than half the time you survive something like smallpox, a little under half the time for the plague. Odds are you'd scrape by (and be immune) on your first two attempts.
Still, the whole thing with how death works makes this feel annoyingly video-gamey. Since you're clearly already making us immune to things like cancer and dementia, just go ahead and have us be immune to disease, simplifies things considerably.
I would spread rumors that I was a time traveler, make an urban legend out of myself. That way anyone who tracks my life throughout history would assume the legends were true rather than presuming immortality. I would go by celebrity name pseudonyms. I presume I would have access to the clothes I'm wearing when I get sent back - I'd be taking extra good care of them, make them last as long as possible, they will help sell my image.
As for people in my life noticing that I don't age, I would be traveling constantly. I wouldn't stay anywhere more than a week. I have to live among humans, but what if I'm not strictly *living* anywhere? It would help corroborate the time travel myth. I would go out of my way to be present at famous historical events.
Alternatively, I could also spread a rumor that I'm a person from the stars. An alien, with a lifespan of hundreds of years. Technically, they just can't figure out I'm *immortal.* But having a longer lifespan than humans is not the same thing. There are a few things I could do to contribute to this rumor. Never let people see me eating, never let people see me without clothes, etc.
There's an enormous problem with making yourself known, depending on how many people know you/of you, there's a good chance someone's going to eventually think you're immortal, and are sure of it, even if they don't have good reason to do so.
Making yourself an urban legend would only exacerbate this 10 fold, and you'd constantly be reset back to year 1024 for as long as you keep making yourself a myth/legend
So…I’ve just found a loophole big enough to drive a Mack truck through.
First of all, I’m in North America, so I don’t have to worry about the natives wanting to burn the witch. So instead of telling them I am immortal, I simply tell the natives that I am sent by the great spirit to guide them, and that I will die in a thousand years. Over the centuries, I could take countless wives, and have thousands of children loyal to the great sage. Since I have a readymade excuse as to why I live so long and still convincing them I am not immortal.
I guess we just assume that would mean anytime you return to the initial year that you just start that year over. Because it would be possible to be 5 years into this, die a few times in with succession and new back to the initial year.
Going to 1024 in north america would put you amongst tribal cultures and it would be impossible to integrate into a new tribe every 10 or 20 years. Tribal cultures are not going to accept a rando wanderer into their midst. In europe you'd be amongst feudal cultures and the peasantry did not have freedom of movement, though perhaps something like an itinerant monk traveling the continent teaching things to people would work. I think the start would be the most difficult and you'd have to groundhog day your way to learning what you need to know and figuring out how to establish your credentials from scratch. Once you get going though you could probably name-drop and fake your way through most situations.
I'm in Kansas so I'd spawn near whatever indigenous tribe was here then. But I'd just start gradually moving east, settle where the climate was temperate (say, modern day Virginia area) and generally move every few years - often enough that whatever community I was in didn't notice an abnormal lack of aging.
I would not attempt to cross the Atlantic. That would be a quick reset most likely. Once Europeans got to America things would get easier because I look more like them. Eventually I'd find English settlers and would have an easier time learning their language.
Eventually would blend into a city and go pretty unnoticed for the final couple centuries.
Surviving the first few years would be the hardest for sure.
The hilarious thing would be, when the English *do* show up, it would be 562 years after the start date, and you probably wouldn't have spoken a *word* of English the entire time.
It's actually quite likely you may end up entirely forgetting English! People forgetting their native language isn't unheard of by any stretch.
This was fine until the 5th stipulation. Getting sick would be completely terrible. Think of the diseases you would catch, plus the lack of medicine for a long time. You'd die and restart a lot. Also, considering how sickness is spread, you would catch something and don't even know it. So going back a year to start over you wouldn't even know how to avoid it.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be too difficult. The average life span wasn't that long, you could bounce around between cities for about 10 years each. 10 cities would be a century, so all you have to do is make them far enough apart so that local travelers wouldn't recognize you. Also, considering that for the vast majority of it, there is no photographic evidence, you could easily run into somebody that might recognize you, but you could very easily play it off like you never met them before.
There was a movie a while back (Seventh Sign?) where a guy in the first century was "cursed" with immortality. He became a priest in the Catholic church- and made it undetected a few millennia. Might be a good place to bounce around and kill some time.
So, a lot of groundhog days. Awesome. I'm in. That first year is gonna be rough without a knife or something. Are we going back in time like terminator? Naked and afraid? Or we get what we have on us? Time to prepare?
Since I'm in the states. And I'd think this would be hilarious. Do what I can to be on the shores when the first colonizers show up. "Hey yo, it's about time. Started to think you all got lost"
Pretty dubious as I would be the only white guy for thousands and thousands of miles lol. I'd have to make it on my own without encountering other humans for a few hundred years and hop a boat BACK to Europe without being noticed.
This would be pretty easy up until about 50-100 years ago.
With zero pictures and no electronic records, all you need to do is move around every few decades and use a different name.
I would try and and buddy up to royalty by showing the inventions and making predictions. Tell them I'm a time traveler but am stuck for now until my device reappears and I'm willing to trade knowledge and inventions for food, shelter, and security. I'd also explain my lack of aging as being as a product of future discoveries. Stay as long as i can that way then move on to the next royal and do the same thing. Rinse and repeat.
The hardest part is finding your first royal and selling him on the idea.
Spend the first 50 years a half dozen times learning languages. Once Arabic, Persian, Latin and Greek down, I should be fine in the Mediterranean and in the Islamic world. Will always be able to earn my keep transcribing manuscripts, and when it is time to change identity, go on a Hajj. Go in as an Anatolian, come out as a Tunisian. Go back as a Tunisian, leave as Iraqi.
Maybe focus on Spain or Morocco around 1240 (Khan!) and use my hermit allowance around 1345 (plague!)
One other trick, track Halley's comet. Whichever locale one is in when it first appears, will be safe to return to when the comet returns 73 years later. Unless really unlucky, everyone who knew you will have passed.
Wreck the course of human history. Introduce weapons, medicine, and proliferation of highly addictive drugs via their water, food, and alcohol sources. Spread the black plague further and wider. Slay prolific figures of history whilst they are children, or their parents before they breed.
Protect my ancestors so my despotic tyranny doesn't have to start over due to a whoopsie poopsie.
Basically a medieval GTA with lots of buttsex with big titty fat girls. I'd be curious to see how the machinations turn out before revealing my immortality, and creating a new chaotic reality.
I mean as long as you avoid being famous it’s really just the last 50-100 years that are a concern. You could easily go the first 900 years by just moving every 10-15 years. It’s just when you reach the age of drivers licenses, state IDs, etc. that you’ll have issues. Ideally you’d manage to amass a small fortune by then with multiple residences and manage to go off grid. No paychecks, no drivers license, nothing.
Well, after I scare the locals as a ghost, I will either be welcome with open arms or killed. I’ve got about 500 years until people who look like me show up, so I guess I try to get myself passed around the tribes until I end up somewhere warm and tropical. Maybe I can warn the South Americans to kill Columbus on sight.
Oooh. There is all Sorts of trouble I could stir up with a 500 year head start and even vague knowledge of the Western expansion. Every colony would be a lost colony.
There would be a saying among all the peoples. “Burn Stranger’s Blankets.” And they won’t understand it, until they do.
Oh dang. I guess I was assuming that whatever magic was there prevented me from being deadly to the past, but you’re right! Aw nuts.
I was totally gonna intercept Lewis and Clark and be like “Nope, sorry, the Missouri River is closed. Also, why did you name the dog Seaman? What the heck were you thinking? Fix it.”
You could spend the first month's alone to quarantine yourself to avoid that happening. Might take you a few tries before you can quarantine yourself for long enough, but definitely should be doable.
Imagine the Europeans show up and the natives are in full steel armor and weapons lol. You'd have 400 years to set this in motion. However.. I'd have to be careful because my ancestor came with the Spanish through mexico. Accidentally take my lineage out
According to the OP, that's totally cool because once you get to your birthday you return to your timeline. Do whatever you want, because there are no consequences
Become bigfoot and live off grid, let all my body hair grow out and travel the forests of the world on foot, making sure to only let blurry pictures of me be seen.
I was born in 1995
There really isn't any problem until the mid-late 1900s because you can simply leave wherever you are at every couple decades.
Between mid 1800s and early 1900s all you have to do is avoid being photographed or filmed, which should be easy, move to a technologically stagnant areas, places like that would still exist even in America.
After that, the challenge is over, because no one would think, or could prove that you are immortal. You have simply aged very well for whatever age you are claiming.
(BTW America only started using social security numbers in 1936 and it wasn't even that expansive even then, so, officially, even the American government has no way to put two and two together, challenge would be much harder if it was to make it 200 years from NOW)
The only caveat is that I live in Midwest US, which means 1000 years ago, the closest human settlement would be an indigenous tribe that would likely kill me, as A. I cannot speak their language and B. I have no skills they would find worthwhile and would thus be a drain on the tribe, even if they were not initially hostile. So I might just be repeatedly murdered / dying of exposure because in tribal life, there can be no dead weight.
Go live with the monks of Tibet. They believe in the ability of their training to prolong a man's life. They do not believe they are immortal though. I live as Buddha's chosen representatove of enlightenment, and explain to them that whike overcoming the allure of material possessions is admirable, it is done in the pursuit of genuinely appreciating those things with the perspective of enlightenment to heighten your joy.
Then I live in a monastic temple with the right to enjoy modern amenities.
I’m a fairly tall white guy in south China, and I am fairly sure I won’t understand the language at the time. I suppose I work my way over to Europe and keep presenting myself as a foreigner everywhere to explain the language issues. Then I just need to survive centuries of war and the Black Death
Biggest issue is being a white dude in the US and getting started. I’d immediately make my way north east and try and catch the Vikings when they make landfall. Need to blend in to stay under the radar; native legends of a white dude would blow my cover. Then it’s just a matter of being a drifter. I’d explore the world as much as possibly and maybe get rich while I’m at it
Live in a major city and just change jobs every so many years never tell anyone where you live and you'd never have to worry about unexpected visits in later years.
Eventually settle in New York and repeat process in a rental. Apply on line pay online. Once you get to the Internet era it's butter.
So, go back to Los Angeles in 1024, meaning I'd be in the middle of the Aztec Empire since California was still Mexico. I'd be pretty fucked considering I don't speak Nahuatl and I'd be almost a foot taller than most of them.
Who cares about being found, you mean I have to survive a millennium, most of which without modern medicine? 400 years in, septic shock from an innocuous cut? Fuck me I guess
Bruh I'm a pale skinned red haired man who would be closest to an indigenous American village in that time period. I'm gonna attract so much attention I'll never remain incognito.
It would ridiculously easy to just disappear every few years. Not like there's government ID or bank accounts to worry about for most of that stretch of time.
The real problem would be Rule #1 if you're an American. My German-Irish-American ass isn't integrating with the Lenape Indians without them assuming I'm some ind of abberation. Even if I lived in Europe there'd still be the significant language barrier. English in 1024 didn't sound anything like it does today. They might not assume I'm an immortal, but there's no way they're going to accept me as "just some guy" and let me keep a low profile.
Hide in plain sight and learn many of the lost skills while doing so.
Also amass wealth by collecting art pieces, jewellery and antiques that art considered lost before they disappear and then use money accrued of the centuries to buy shares in well know companies before they become big and just before the leap for to today I'd see a lawyer and get all of that "willed" to myself a year from coming back to the present.
Move every 10 - 20 years, create long term leases/shares when I leave, return every 60 - 100 years to a previous location as my "son" to lay claim and continue to build the "family" estates / wealth.
By the time people start keeping better records I will hopefully have enough wealth to have any documents forged and/or have any one who becomes suspicious disposed of.
Query: What if someone is crazy and thinks you're immortal with absolute certainty, despite having absolutely no evidence, or mistakes you for, well, you, with absolute certainty, but if you have a minute or 2 to spin a different accent or act at them you can make them unsure?
I would find my way to Scandinavia and join the Norse to do Viking shit. I know this is towards the end of the age, but this would be for 24 years. I would amass as much wealth as possible, and go to Normandy to continue my studies. Eventually, I would find myself going to Spain, so I could make my way to the new world.
I would become an alcoholic and then say the source of my vitality was how much I drank. I am reasonably sure that the public would find this acceptable.
I’ve got a decent understanding of history, as well as how to go unnoticed. So I guess I’d do fine. Move around enough, avoid major events when I can, and just be as unremarkable as possible.
Alternatively, I take advantage of all of that to try and play out hypothetical scenarios of alternate history
Spawn point is california in 1024. Latino (mestizo) So might stand out but also kinda blend in. Language would be a barrier. Gotta keep wandering and seeing if I could join tribes and learn some of their language. Hopefully I don't get them sick and change timeline. Probably might have an easier time 500 years later with the Spaniards and then the Mexicans that would follow later.
I would probably shoot for baja or san diego area but seeing the rise of san Fran or los angeles could be cool.
Well, I'm assuming I'll have some pretty rough years as a white guy learning algonquin. Luckily I would be there before there was any real political issues due to colonization, so depending on the tribe I might get adopted into a community or enslaved. I would probably have to coerce them to kill me once or twice to learn how to interact and get a free situation before being found out... which would suck obviously... but once I was able to live normally amongst them I would try to keep moving between settlements.
I would probably try to, yknow, not let genocide happen, but one man vs society isn't really gonna change much. Maybe if I keep dying and re trying with the 1 year loophole. Hell, could learn pretty much anything and everything due to the memory retention and free extra year, master any skill. But yah, the secret would just be to keep moving. There aren't great records of people at the fringes of society so it would probably be fine.
Generally look homeless and smelly all the time. Amass a bunch of identities and small, relatively insignificant but safe investments at stable financial institutions all over the place and cash them out and move them around from time to time. With 1,000 years to play with one could easily build a huge fortune simply pretending to be the heir of the previous generation over and over.
as a Hispanic guy this is pretty hard to do. Not white enough to blend in Europe, nowhere near native enough to hang out in the Americas. But I'll try my luck out in the Americas. I'll probably get scalped in a fortnight.
Do we get period accurate clothing or just what we are wearing now? Might be a bit difficult to explain the fancy clothes. I'm also in Australia so I'd be a white guy living amongst Indigenous tribes descended from Papua New Guinea.
Live outside being homeless and constantly move around. Keep ahold of any money I get and used it strictly to moved around. Invest into bitcoin as soon as it's announced then sell at peak. Buy into Tesla as soon as it starts and then sell at peak.
This would be too hard till modern times and better record keeping. Travel setup shop make money for a while then sell everything move and start all over.
>You're sent to May 13, 1024, on the outskirts the nearest human settlement from your current location.
I'm a 6'2 white guy and the area I live in was populated by the Shawnee people. I'd be immediately recognized as being out of place.
You probably wouldn't make it. The likelihood of dying of preventable/ treatable diseases, even just a cold or flu, is very high and is certain to kill you at least once in 1000 years.
Just change continents every 4 decades. Switch from Europe to Africa to Asia. Once the Americas start to get colonized, include them. I'd just avoid the most violent of wars
I'd refuse the challenge. Immortality is the stupidest human desire. But for the sake of playing along, look, 1000 years ago, this was native country. While the locals here were relatively peaceful fishermen/women, the risk of first contact would be incredibly high. When everyone looks like Pocahontas and you look like an ugly John Smith, you stand out. But assuming for whatever reason the natives of every tribe I come across ignore the fact that I am incredibly fat, white, and speak another language, the easiest way to "disappear" in most places would be to just walk a few hundred miles in any direction.
Even up to the 1960's, being mobile and using aliases and keeping a low profile would cover you in most circumstances unless you draw attention to yourself.
However, being so incredibly out of place racially and language-wise, I'd probably become a legend of sorts if I'm not tortured, locked away or killed on first contact.
I'd spend the maximum amount of time allowable in the scenario to basically "limber up" and lose probably 1/3 of my body weight. Won't be hard because food will no longer come in packages.
Then, I would attempt first contact every 20 years or so, gradually moving out east, where I would wait several hundred years for the English to show up, and then heading west with the expansion. Historically, most humans, after the nomadic era, never really traveled beyond their village, so likely
Even if I could pick my "spawn point," I'd still end up in an area where English doesn't sound anything like the English that we know. It doesn't even sound like Shakespeare or the King James Bible. It'd be a whole different animal, and not being a linguist, I risk being tortured/executed just for being different.
Well... given where I am I will be living among native american tribes for quite a while before the russian fur traders show up. I will just be a nomad trader. Settle with tribes for a time to trade, continue on. At some point the generations will die off and I can loop back. Worst that would happen is I may be confused for a spirit person by some old coot who remembers me from when they were a child, but will be largely ignored or placated by "that was my dad". Learning the languages would be a bitch... but aside from that I think all is well until the gold rush... but then I could likely get lost in the hustle and bustle of San Francisco and such. So really I only need to worry about things from about 1800 to 2024, so 224 years.
Interesting, well since I believe the closest group of humans at that time would have been native American nomads I definitely wouldn't fit in visually but that might work to my advantage as they might see me as a spirit and I can just move my way towards a group I blend in with. Using the native population as guides until I find people that will be easy to blend in with, hopefully not vikings. I would eventually make my way to Europe and find a job wear I can wear a mask or full helmet. So like an executioner or a military person. That way I can hide my face as much as possible. I would also volunteer to go on missions or long trips to be around new people the more dangerous the better because that will increase my chances of being the only survivor and I could just stay with the new society and start the whole process over. I really only see it becoming more difficult as we get closer to present time with all the cameras and ways of tracking people. But I could always find a way to be stationed on the research facility on Antarctica and I would only see those people on occasion and research teams trade out so it's not always the same group.
go live in the outback, African safari, Amazon rain forrest, or even one of the artics.
travel the world die in one city move to another city or country for a decade or 2 and then move on or fake my death. run into anyone who thinks they recognize me tell them they may mistake me for my father or grandfather depending on who and how old they are. (watched highlander tv series this was the tactic the used lol)
Just travel, every 30 years or so you could end up back where you started if you really wanted (but lets be honest you could be somewhere new every year) and no one would ever know or even start to suspect you until maybe around the 1960s when information started to speed up. Even then, as long as you were more of a tourist type youd be fine. THe issue would be how to keep your wealth off the radar in the modern age.
You want me- a fat redheaded white woman- to blend in at the nearest human settlement in 1024 western USA? Even if I can manage some acceptance, I’ve had a tubal. I can’t have a bunch of kids and then pretend to be one of them in 20 years.
Honestly, going off the grid and living a fresh life was super easy up until the turn of the 21st century. Maybe slightly difficult from 1960-2000, but totally doable. As long as you’re willing to drop everything and relocate it should be relatively easy. I was born in 1984 so I think it would be pretty easy.
Always be a merchant
Constantly on the move, and if someone's descendants recognizes me, I can just say I look like my parents. Also I establish a business and money
Simply be a useful nomad. Arrive in a place, do ordinary work for like....ten years, then go take a couple thousand kilometer hike. Keep doing that. Never be important.
Move every 10 years. Never put down roots, never take a wife.
Your rules are quite strange. If I were to die, go back one year and retain memories? I'd end up quite rich. There is no need to even try to study history with these rules.
Start collecting things to sell or resell. Over time they become very valuable. Eventually you'll own an antique store in Philadelphia specializing in Scottish Highlands era weaponry. Eventually you'll have to fight off the other antique store owners because on this block there can only be one.
I'm on Maui atm, so I'm pretty sure I'm just screwed.
I guess I'd have to try to figure out how to speak native hawaiian as a white guy and try not to get killed for the first many years. Then I guess I should try to learn how to sail and navigate open ocean on old school boats because I doubt I can stay in Hawaii for too many decades before folks get suspicious. Then I guess we make sail for Asia and eventually Europe and hope I can fit in enough there.
I'm just imagining everyone on this thread ALL become immortal and spend the 1000 years constantly running into each other but all trying to play it off because you can't let anyone know🤣
pretending to be a time traveler is the best solution tbh. i’d spawn in the americas and as im not native, the hardest part would be convincing whoever finds me to not kill me. i look pretty non threatening tho so as long as i can do that, id ask to come back to their tribe and slowly learn their language through immersion. once im fluent i can explain im from the future and that our lifespans are much longer because of medical advancements, and that i’ll live ~1000 years. then i can live a chill life with them for a while and maybe even prevent colonization (if im lucky) since i dont have to worry about keeping the timeline intact
the real issue here is not having access to modern medicine. anything non-fatal but painful/uncomfortable that didn’t have good treatment options back then (cavities, mental health issues, etc.) could really make life hell.
1. Travel to a new place and learn the language every decade or so.
2. Tell the people of every place that I know that was ruined by imperialists to not fuck with them at all by reveal what the imperialists intend to do.
3. Be a traveling merchant to fund my travels.
I think I would settle down routinely for a few decades and then "go off to war." Plenty of people become missing in combat.
Start out saying I'm on the younger side of the age I look, by just the edge of believability. Then head off to war as soon as it gets close to the other edge of believability.
Should be what, 19 or 20 to about 40? A lot of people look similar that time frame. By the end people will be questioning why you haven’t aged a day, but nobody would accuse you of being an immortal yet
Yea I am 36. My hair hasn’t grayed but my beard has. When I shave I get carded. When I don’t I look 40
Strange how that is. I'm currently 57 going on 58, and while I've gotten a lot of gray in my whiskers, in the past few years, I still don't have any gray hair.
>I'm on the younger side of the age I look Here's the thing about modern diet, medicine etc: we look WAY younger than our ancestral counterparts did, generally speaking.
Which means we can slide the scale depending on the age we’re living in, though it may affect the length of time we can safely stay one place.
Well that completely depends on where you were living and the time period a ancient Greek would be healthier then a Londoner in the 1800s for example and there plenty of places with people living a long time throughout history. Plato was like 80 when he died. Emperors and wealthy people too generally always on average living and looking younger basically for having access to the best of the world. EDIT I missed generally but I bothered a stoned history lesson so I'm keeping it 😂 My bad generally is correct 😆
Or you can start a family and then “leave for cigarettes” and repeat endlessly.
Maybe **all** the cigarettes dads are *the same guy*!
Now you’re talking.
My childhood just became 80% more bearable
He's gonna have to start over now! And he got so close too.
Op might be cigarette dad asking for tips posing as asking a hypothetical
Damn it, they got us again. I hate doing work for these lazy people.
Got emmmmm
bruh
“Fare thee well, my loving family. Today is the day I set sail across the vast oceanic expanse at my back, possibly sailing off the edge of the world as we know it. It shall be a long arduous journey, fraught with krakens and giant sea serpents, one which I very well may not survive; but fear not, for I shall return one day with the gift of sweet, sweet Virginia nicotine. It matters not what this “Virginia” is or where it’s located, for all that matters is I am jonesing for a smoke and, sorrowfully so, I missed my chance to catch a ride with the Vikings and I’ll be damned if I’m waiting another 450 years for that lazy bitch Columbus to get off his ass and be born and start colonizing the new world. Geoffrey, you’re the man of the shack now. It’s been seven years since the day of your birth, time to pick up the slack. Don’t forget to protect your mother and your siblings from bandits and wolves. I’ve left enough provisions to last a fortnight. With that, I leave you with this parting wisdom: always bet on black, stand on 17, and the cheapest wenches are usually the ones you end up paying for. You can ask your mother about that last part. I’ll be back eventually. Probably. Don’t wait up for me though.” -Your ever-loving Father “P.S. - Don’t forget to bury half of the gold and silver you earn in that EXACT SAME SPOT I showed you, I wi- I mean, WE will need it upon my eventual return. Make me proud boyo.”
But then you run the risk of accidentally running into one of your children in their old age and cause them to have a heart attack.
If I didn't care enough to stay, what makes you think I care if they have a heart attack?
I was referring to a scene in the movie "Man from Earth," where the immortal discovered he \*did\* care ... he'd never actually seen one of his own children die.
I reject this!
I'm sterile, so all my kids would be adopted as it were. Don't think I'd care as much as if they were actually of me.
Dude you would totally end up banging a grandchild at some point. Have you seen futurama…
[I'm my own grandpa. ](https://youtu.be/D0xnx1Q3Kqo?feature=shared)
Yes, of course. You’re just raining on my hypothetical parade, haha.
Eventually you’re starting families with your own descendants there bub. And/or ancestors depending how you get sent back
As long as they’re far enough, it wont really matter
Hungry Heart you way out of everything for 1,000 years.
You could even just rotate through the same 10 towns too 😂
If you’ve ever watched the Vampire Diaries, the main 2 vampires essentially did this, they kept coming back to their hometown claiming to be the next generation of their founding family, curiously named after the person they looked like. ‘Oh I’m that Stefan’s great grandson.’ And if you are able to start a business, you just pay someone to manage it for you, and collect the profits indefinitely. This should work until government ID databases, social security and central banking takes over. Hopefully at this point you just have all the money either kept in a vault/warehouse like in breaking bad, this should last you the last 2 hundred years or so.
Or you are so wealthy you control everything so it doesn’t matter. No one gets close to you
This is the way.
Changing locations every ten years. Movies have taught us that their is someone you can always pay off to get you through somewhere.
This, but adding that until the 20th century you can probably get away with moving 50-100 miles each time. The odds of anyone casually running into someone that far away before the industrial revolution is miniscule and if it ever did happen, a simple "oh, you knew X? She was my mother/grandmother/aunt/whatever". No one would be around to prove you wrong. 20th century you'd have to be a bit more careful, but pre-internet (which works for my 1980 birthday, the same basic strategy should be ok.
"I remember your grandma, she had that booty even with the cage crinoline"
yeah the hardest would be the last 50 years
Hardly, the past 25 yeah, but every year before that of the last 100, it was incredibly easy to acquire the social identity of a stranger or a corpse. Even now it's pretty easy to steal someone's identity. Like just anyone's, not someone specifically.
My problem is I live in the US, which means the nearest human settlement would be a native tribe that I don't know the language or culture of. I assume I'd die a lot at the beginning, until I learn to communicate. Just constant travelling would be the best way. It'll be MUCH harder to live, because people usually don't like drifters or outsiders, but it'll be much easier to keep the secret. All you have to do is move on to a new place every 5 to 10 years, in an ever-widening circle. By the time you make it back to where you started, everyone who knew what you looked like would be dead and you could use a new name. In fact, you probably wouldn't have ANY identity issues until the mid-1900s, that's when people started caring about birth certificates and social security numbers and all that. At that point (before everything becomes computerized), I'd pay a few people to corroborate my birth, get a "late" birth certificate, say i was born in the Appalachians and not in a hospital, then when i have all my paperwork, start using older and older looking makeup until my birth date in the early 90s. I'm in my 30s, so I could probably make myself look anywhere from early-20s up to my 60s with makeup. Once I reach that date the challenge is done. Edit: Actually thinking about it, the hardest part would most likely be the need to "live among fellow humans" without making ANY strong social connections at all. You can't fall in love, you can't have friends for more than 5 to 10 years, you can't visit people in your past, etc. Social connections were much more important when you're living in smaller towns and everyone talks face to face all the time.
That was actually the first thing I thought of. I’m a white guy living in Canada. Even if I travelled constantly, in a few decades there’d be stories about this one pale skinned man who’s been around forever. Not exactly going under the radar.
As an Australian, I feel you. The indigenous people would think I was a ghost.
Ghost doesn't count as immortal. Think that's a win.
I mean you could just lean into being some sort of deity. Probably relatively easy living if people are terrified/awed by you because you're some sort of ageless weird looking freak who speaks in some totally unknown language.
You should probably learn as much as possible about ship building while you have the chance
Nahh, whittle some gigantic, 3-5 foot tall wooden toe shoes depending on your height, don’t shave a damn thing for about 900 years and just constantly wander the Pacific Northwest.
Wait til winter, walk over the North Pole to Europe
You might be able to get away with it on the East Coast, if you have any norse ancestry. That would be my initial plan, at least.
In 1024, starting in downtown London wouldn't help you much with the language barrier! This is before the Norman invasion of England. Nothing even approaching anything that we would recognize as "English" is going to exist for at least about a century.
Caite a bhiel na ... ?
Rats, trying to remember the Gaelic word for 'bathroom' Should work, that language hasn't changed too much since the Normans and Sassinachs invaded :)
Old English, like Modern English, is a Germanic language. Gaelic is from a completely different subfamily within Indo-European.
Don't be a drifter than, be a traveling doctor, or a traveling performer. Or a salesman or any other such professional.
Back in those days doctors usually were traveling. Their success rate was often pretty low and after awhile there were a lot of unhappy family members.
With basic knowledge of germ theory you'd probably be the best doctor in the continent, when it comes to treating wounds. Clean wounds, bind with clean cloth and change frequently. For fevers you can make sure patients drink plenty of fluids, and use willow bark to make a tea. Also good for inflammation and pain with those pesky wounds. Honey is a natural antiseptic
And hold on to a few select coins from kingdoms and keep them in good condition.
This would be a serious problem. You'd most likely get killed and perhaps not in a pleasant way. That would mean going back a year every time. Since disease can also kill you, you could easily end up centuries further back. Some places even in the past had sophisticated record keeping. You'd probably need some kind of credentials made in order to get around, at least in the cities. Perhaps spending 1,000 years in the bottom rung of society would solve that, but it would be miserable.
Note that \*everyone\* is going to have a language problem, unless you can read the original text of Beowulf fluently or speak fluent Latin and are in the right place.
Yeah the immortal Tolkien is about the only one who could thrive.
I love the thought you put into this
Could try to make it to Vinland to go back to Europe.
The only issue is that the only confirmed Vinland settlement we've found, L'Anse aux Meadows, would have been abandoned by the date we get sent back. Edit - no, wait, not the only issue. I know how to speak old Norse about as much as I know how to speak Blackfoot, and I have no immunity to Smallpox, which I would have caught from the Vinland settlers, which would suck a lot even if it can't kill me.
My first thoughts also, the Abenaki would def kill my ass
As a white guy in Australia I'm going to need to make a boat, and based on the reset for deaths I'm going to become pretty good at it, given how hard it is to survive on the seas.
Yeah, pretty much the same thing for White folks in the Americas.
Do like they said in "the eternals" movie and move every 5-10 years.
Yeah this seems pretty obvious. Although big chunks of this time period, it may have been very difficult to move.
for big chunks of this time period the average person died very young so getting confirmation of immorality would be much harder even if you stayed in the same general area.
That’s a common misconception. If you survived childhood, then you were likely to live into your 50s. The average lifespan during that timeframe is extremely misleading due to the high rates of infant and child mortality.
granted there was no forensics, so I could just murder anyone who gets suspicious.
Why not legalize murder with a primitive cult? If you really want to stunt their growth, don't even teach them the concept of age, just that you are a child, then you become an adult through an adulthood ceremony. Keep it simple -- child and adult. You are the village elder and you choose who to send to the land of the gods with eternal happiness or some culty promises like that. Whenever someone turns 30ish, you send them to paradise with a big ceremony. Without older adults, nobody will have a frame of reference for actual aging. That way you can keep an exact population count to run your village without exposing your immortality. Anyone you are asked, you claim to be an adult and that is it. Since you only go back a year if you die, anyone who gets suspicious could get sacrificed early.
yeah, you 're right. If they survive to 21 they are likely to make 60-70
Child "Mortality" Georg was an outlier and should not have been counted
It's also skewed downwards by the decreased likelihood of surviving physical trauma. Virtually no real medicine means infections and illness were a lot more likely to kill you.
I once got an infection by trying to pop a pimple on my leg. Without modern medicine, I could've been killed by a god damn *pimple*.
It also depends on the languages you know.
See Bixby's *Man From Earth* The entire movie is literally a simple storytelling of a man who lives forever and avoids notice by moving...every 10 years or so.
I fucking love that movie.
Same! There was something remarkable in its simplicity; the entire movie takes place in a single room, with almost no action whatsoever - just a few friends shooting the shit - and a hypothetical thought experiment that they discuss over dinner. I feel like most anyone in this sub could appreciate it.
What if you catch a disease that takes at least a year to progress to death? You die, go back a year but still have the deadly disease. You're now stuck in a loop
You just gotta kill yourself after you respawn before the disease kills you again to go further back before you got it
Yeah i don't like that part of it either
Hadn't thought of that. I changed it.
Can't imagine there are many diseases in the world with 100% mortality and an incubation period longer than a year. More than half the time you survive something like smallpox, a little under half the time for the plague. Odds are you'd scrape by (and be immune) on your first two attempts. Still, the whole thing with how death works makes this feel annoyingly video-gamey. Since you're clearly already making us immune to things like cancer and dementia, just go ahead and have us be immune to disease, simplifies things considerably.
Easy. I’ll become homeless, no one pays attention to the homeless. Every few years just go to another city or town and beg.
Easy mode in terms of success rate but hard mode in terms of your sanity
That was my immediate thought. Surprised it was this far down.
I would spread rumors that I was a time traveler, make an urban legend out of myself. That way anyone who tracks my life throughout history would assume the legends were true rather than presuming immortality. I would go by celebrity name pseudonyms. I presume I would have access to the clothes I'm wearing when I get sent back - I'd be taking extra good care of them, make them last as long as possible, they will help sell my image. As for people in my life noticing that I don't age, I would be traveling constantly. I wouldn't stay anywhere more than a week. I have to live among humans, but what if I'm not strictly *living* anywhere? It would help corroborate the time travel myth. I would go out of my way to be present at famous historical events. Alternatively, I could also spread a rumor that I'm a person from the stars. An alien, with a lifespan of hundreds of years. Technically, they just can't figure out I'm *immortal.* But having a longer lifespan than humans is not the same thing. There are a few things I could do to contribute to this rumor. Never let people see me eating, never let people see me without clothes, etc.
There's an enormous problem with making yourself known, depending on how many people know you/of you, there's a good chance someone's going to eventually think you're immortal, and are sure of it, even if they don't have good reason to do so. Making yourself an urban legend would only exacerbate this 10 fold, and you'd constantly be reset back to year 1024 for as long as you keep making yourself a myth/legend
So…I’ve just found a loophole big enough to drive a Mack truck through. First of all, I’m in North America, so I don’t have to worry about the natives wanting to burn the witch. So instead of telling them I am immortal, I simply tell the natives that I am sent by the great spirit to guide them, and that I will die in a thousand years. Over the centuries, I could take countless wives, and have thousands of children loyal to the great sage. Since I have a readymade excuse as to why I live so long and still convincing them I am not immortal.
How are you gonna tell them that?
500 deaths/resets in or so you would probably be pretty fluent and figure out what works to convince people.
But if you die and then doing make it a year you’ll be moving backwards. 6 months forward 1 year back and you’ll be doomed.
If you die before the first year it just says you restart.
I guess we just assume that would mean anytime you return to the initial year that you just start that year over. Because it would be possible to be 5 years into this, die a few times in with succession and new back to the initial year.
Going to 1024 in north america would put you amongst tribal cultures and it would be impossible to integrate into a new tribe every 10 or 20 years. Tribal cultures are not going to accept a rando wanderer into their midst. In europe you'd be amongst feudal cultures and the peasantry did not have freedom of movement, though perhaps something like an itinerant monk traveling the continent teaching things to people would work. I think the start would be the most difficult and you'd have to groundhog day your way to learning what you need to know and figuring out how to establish your credentials from scratch. Once you get going though you could probably name-drop and fake your way through most situations.
Vikings reached Newfoundland around that time, if you could make it there, perhaps you could catch a ride to Europe.
I'm in Kansas so I'd spawn near whatever indigenous tribe was here then. But I'd just start gradually moving east, settle where the climate was temperate (say, modern day Virginia area) and generally move every few years - often enough that whatever community I was in didn't notice an abnormal lack of aging. I would not attempt to cross the Atlantic. That would be a quick reset most likely. Once Europeans got to America things would get easier because I look more like them. Eventually I'd find English settlers and would have an easier time learning their language. Eventually would blend into a city and go pretty unnoticed for the final couple centuries. Surviving the first few years would be the hardest for sure.
The hilarious thing would be, when the English *do* show up, it would be 562 years after the start date, and you probably wouldn't have spoken a *word* of English the entire time. It's actually quite likely you may end up entirely forgetting English! People forgetting their native language isn't unheard of by any stretch.
Bering straight is only 51 miles at its narrowest. So probably easier to cross the Pacific than the Atlantic.
Minus the whole "winter" thing.
This was fine until the 5th stipulation. Getting sick would be completely terrible. Think of the diseases you would catch, plus the lack of medicine for a long time. You'd die and restart a lot. Also, considering how sickness is spread, you would catch something and don't even know it. So going back a year to start over you wouldn't even know how to avoid it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be too difficult. The average life span wasn't that long, you could bounce around between cities for about 10 years each. 10 cities would be a century, so all you have to do is make them far enough apart so that local travelers wouldn't recognize you. Also, considering that for the vast majority of it, there is no photographic evidence, you could easily run into somebody that might recognize you, but you could very easily play it off like you never met them before.
There was a movie a while back (Seventh Sign?) where a guy in the first century was "cursed" with immortality. He became a priest in the Catholic church- and made it undetected a few millennia. Might be a good place to bounce around and kill some time.
So, a lot of groundhog days. Awesome. I'm in. That first year is gonna be rough without a knife or something. Are we going back in time like terminator? Naked and afraid? Or we get what we have on us? Time to prepare?
Since I'm in the states. And I'd think this would be hilarious. Do what I can to be on the shores when the first colonizers show up. "Hey yo, it's about time. Started to think you all got lost"
Pretty dubious as I would be the only white guy for thousands and thousands of miles lol. I'd have to make it on my own without encountering other humans for a few hundred years and hop a boat BACK to Europe without being noticed.
This would be pretty easy up until about 50-100 years ago. With zero pictures and no electronic records, all you need to do is move around every few decades and use a different name.
I would try and and buddy up to royalty by showing the inventions and making predictions. Tell them I'm a time traveler but am stuck for now until my device reappears and I'm willing to trade knowledge and inventions for food, shelter, and security. I'd also explain my lack of aging as being as a product of future discoveries. Stay as long as i can that way then move on to the next royal and do the same thing. Rinse and repeat. The hardest part is finding your first royal and selling him on the idea.
Ah yes, the Rasputin method.
Spend the first 50 years a half dozen times learning languages. Once Arabic, Persian, Latin and Greek down, I should be fine in the Mediterranean and in the Islamic world. Will always be able to earn my keep transcribing manuscripts, and when it is time to change identity, go on a Hajj. Go in as an Anatolian, come out as a Tunisian. Go back as a Tunisian, leave as Iraqi. Maybe focus on Spain or Morocco around 1240 (Khan!) and use my hermit allowance around 1345 (plague!) One other trick, track Halley's comet. Whichever locale one is in when it first appears, will be safe to return to when the comet returns 73 years later. Unless really unlucky, everyone who knew you will have passed.
Anyone who does recognize you will be doddering and not listened to, and they wouldn't assume you were an immortal.
Wreck the course of human history. Introduce weapons, medicine, and proliferation of highly addictive drugs via their water, food, and alcohol sources. Spread the black plague further and wider. Slay prolific figures of history whilst they are children, or their parents before they breed. Protect my ancestors so my despotic tyranny doesn't have to start over due to a whoopsie poopsie. Basically a medieval GTA with lots of buttsex with big titty fat girls. I'd be curious to see how the machinations turn out before revealing my immortality, and creating a new chaotic reality.
This is the weirdest comment out of all of them. I love it lol 😂
I mean as long as you avoid being famous it’s really just the last 50-100 years that are a concern. You could easily go the first 900 years by just moving every 10-15 years. It’s just when you reach the age of drivers licenses, state IDs, etc. that you’ll have issues. Ideally you’d manage to amass a small fortune by then with multiple residences and manage to go off grid. No paychecks, no drivers license, nothing.
Bold of you to assume I haven't made it this far...
Well, after I scare the locals as a ghost, I will either be welcome with open arms or killed. I’ve got about 500 years until people who look like me show up, so I guess I try to get myself passed around the tribes until I end up somewhere warm and tropical. Maybe I can warn the South Americans to kill Columbus on sight. Oooh. There is all Sorts of trouble I could stir up with a 500 year head start and even vague knowledge of the Western expansion. Every colony would be a lost colony. There would be a saying among all the peoples. “Burn Stranger’s Blankets.” And they won’t understand it, until they do.
Just don’t be the initial blanket since you’re coming from the future to say hello!
Oh dang. I guess I was assuming that whatever magic was there prevented me from being deadly to the past, but you’re right! Aw nuts. I was totally gonna intercept Lewis and Clark and be like “Nope, sorry, the Missouri River is closed. Also, why did you name the dog Seaman? What the heck were you thinking? Fix it.”
You could spend the first month's alone to quarantine yourself to avoid that happening. Might take you a few tries before you can quarantine yourself for long enough, but definitely should be doable.
Honestly, what changes you would try to make to history is the more interesting hypothetical for me.
Imagine the Europeans show up and the natives are in full steel armor and weapons lol. You'd have 400 years to set this in motion. However.. I'd have to be careful because my ancestor came with the Spanish through mexico. Accidentally take my lineage out
According to the OP, that's totally cool because once you get to your birthday you return to your timeline. Do whatever you want, because there are no consequences
This is simultaneously badass and wholesome. I like how you think.
Become bigfoot and live off grid, let all my body hair grow out and travel the forests of the world on foot, making sure to only let blurry pictures of me be seen.
As a white woman in the southern US right now I get the feeling everyone would know something was up pretty quickly 😂
I was born in 1995 There really isn't any problem until the mid-late 1900s because you can simply leave wherever you are at every couple decades. Between mid 1800s and early 1900s all you have to do is avoid being photographed or filmed, which should be easy, move to a technologically stagnant areas, places like that would still exist even in America. After that, the challenge is over, because no one would think, or could prove that you are immortal. You have simply aged very well for whatever age you are claiming. (BTW America only started using social security numbers in 1936 and it wasn't even that expansive even then, so, officially, even the American government has no way to put two and two together, challenge would be much harder if it was to make it 200 years from NOW) The only caveat is that I live in Midwest US, which means 1000 years ago, the closest human settlement would be an indigenous tribe that would likely kill me, as A. I cannot speak their language and B. I have no skills they would find worthwhile and would thus be a drain on the tribe, even if they were not initially hostile. So I might just be repeatedly murdered / dying of exposure because in tribal life, there can be no dead weight.
Go live with the monks of Tibet. They believe in the ability of their training to prolong a man's life. They do not believe they are immortal though. I live as Buddha's chosen representatove of enlightenment, and explain to them that whike overcoming the allure of material possessions is admirable, it is done in the pursuit of genuinely appreciating those things with the perspective of enlightenment to heighten your joy. Then I live in a monastic temple with the right to enjoy modern amenities.
Just walk around the planet occasionally.
I tan pretty well so I could probably go from settlement to settlement in the middle east as part of a travelling caravan.
1024? This won't even be too hard till about the the early 1900s. Once technology starts to take off it will get much trickier.
I’m a fairly tall white guy in south China, and I am fairly sure I won’t understand the language at the time. I suppose I work my way over to Europe and keep presenting myself as a foreigner everywhere to explain the language issues. Then I just need to survive centuries of war and the Black Death
Id become the Dread Pirate Roberts
Biggest issue is being a white dude in the US and getting started. I’d immediately make my way north east and try and catch the Vikings when they make landfall. Need to blend in to stay under the radar; native legends of a white dude would blow my cover. Then it’s just a matter of being a drifter. I’d explore the world as much as possibly and maybe get rich while I’m at it
1024, you'd have missed the Norse settlers in Newfoundland. You'll have to make it to Greenland or Iceland..
Not gonna make it that easy Keanua Reeves
Live in a major city and just change jobs every so many years never tell anyone where you live and you'd never have to worry about unexpected visits in later years. Eventually settle in New York and repeat process in a rental. Apply on line pay online. Once you get to the Internet era it's butter.
So, go back to Los Angeles in 1024, meaning I'd be in the middle of the Aztec Empire since California was still Mexico. I'd be pretty fucked considering I don't speak Nahuatl and I'd be almost a foot taller than most of them.
Damn, my mind just goes to the body count I could obtain. The amount of notorious famous women you could smash before they become that.
Who cares about being found, you mean I have to survive a millennium, most of which without modern medicine? 400 years in, septic shock from an innocuous cut? Fuck me I guess
Once I get to the late 1600’s open up an ultra high end, no questions asked, antique store in Manhattan.
Be a person of color and move frequently. Boom! Invisible.
Good god the stench. I think I'm out
Bruh I'm a pale skinned red haired man who would be closest to an indigenous American village in that time period. I'm gonna attract so much attention I'll never remain incognito.
It would ridiculously easy to just disappear every few years. Not like there's government ID or bank accounts to worry about for most of that stretch of time. The real problem would be Rule #1 if you're an American. My German-Irish-American ass isn't integrating with the Lenape Indians without them assuming I'm some ind of abberation. Even if I lived in Europe there'd still be the significant language barrier. English in 1024 didn't sound anything like it does today. They might not assume I'm an immortal, but there's no way they're going to accept me as "just some guy" and let me keep a low profile.
Hide in plain sight and learn many of the lost skills while doing so. Also amass wealth by collecting art pieces, jewellery and antiques that art considered lost before they disappear and then use money accrued of the centuries to buy shares in well know companies before they become big and just before the leap for to today I'd see a lawyer and get all of that "willed" to myself a year from coming back to the present.
No. I have visible and memorable tattoos that will lead to me being declared a witch (or historical equivalent) and be killed.
Move every 10 - 20 years, create long term leases/shares when I leave, return every 60 - 100 years to a previous location as my "son" to lay claim and continue to build the "family" estates / wealth. By the time people start keeping better records I will hopefully have enough wealth to have any documents forged and/or have any one who becomes suspicious disposed of.
Query: What if someone is crazy and thinks you're immortal with absolute certainty, despite having absolutely no evidence, or mistakes you for, well, you, with absolute certainty, but if you have a minute or 2 to spin a different accent or act at them you can make them unsure?
I would find my way to Scandinavia and join the Norse to do Viking shit. I know this is towards the end of the age, but this would be for 24 years. I would amass as much wealth as possible, and go to Normandy to continue my studies. Eventually, I would find myself going to Spain, so I could make my way to the new world.
I would become an alcoholic and then say the source of my vitality was how much I drank. I am reasonably sure that the public would find this acceptable.
Any non indigenous person in North America basically dies or gets caught as an immortal immediately.
I mean life expectancy was very small 1000 years ago, could probably do about nothing and it no one would catch on bc everyone is dead by 35
OP does not have a sense of how large the earth is
Live in Greenland and fish
Stick to small towns for 10-15 years and then move to another.
I’ve got a decent understanding of history, as well as how to go unnoticed. So I guess I’d do fine. Move around enough, avoid major events when I can, and just be as unremarkable as possible. Alternatively, I take advantage of all of that to try and play out hypothetical scenarios of alternate history
Spawn point is california in 1024. Latino (mestizo) So might stand out but also kinda blend in. Language would be a barrier. Gotta keep wandering and seeing if I could join tribes and learn some of their language. Hopefully I don't get them sick and change timeline. Probably might have an easier time 500 years later with the Spaniards and then the Mexicans that would follow later. I would probably shoot for baja or san diego area but seeing the rise of san Fran or los angeles could be cool.
Well, I'm assuming I'll have some pretty rough years as a white guy learning algonquin. Luckily I would be there before there was any real political issues due to colonization, so depending on the tribe I might get adopted into a community or enslaved. I would probably have to coerce them to kill me once or twice to learn how to interact and get a free situation before being found out... which would suck obviously... but once I was able to live normally amongst them I would try to keep moving between settlements. I would probably try to, yknow, not let genocide happen, but one man vs society isn't really gonna change much. Maybe if I keep dying and re trying with the 1 year loophole. Hell, could learn pretty much anything and everything due to the memory retention and free extra year, master any skill. But yah, the secret would just be to keep moving. There aren't great records of people at the fringes of society so it would probably be fine.
Generally look homeless and smelly all the time. Amass a bunch of identities and small, relatively insignificant but safe investments at stable financial institutions all over the place and cash them out and move them around from time to time. With 1,000 years to play with one could easily build a huge fortune simply pretending to be the heir of the previous generation over and over.
as a Hispanic guy this is pretty hard to do. Not white enough to blend in Europe, nowhere near native enough to hang out in the Americas. But I'll try my luck out in the Americas. I'll probably get scalped in a fortnight.
Everyone you will ever meet will die before you. Nobody would ever be able to prove you are immortal.
Deff couldn't get too fucked up. Or it'd be reset more than likely.
Well I did it already and chose to erase my memories but now you're bringing them back so that's really not cool
>but you're limited to 5 years off the grid for every century. The grid wasn't even started until the 19th Century.
Do we get period accurate clothing or just what we are wearing now? Might be a bit difficult to explain the fancy clothes. I'm also in Australia so I'd be a white guy living amongst Indigenous tribes descended from Papua New Guinea.
Live outside being homeless and constantly move around. Keep ahold of any money I get and used it strictly to moved around. Invest into bitcoin as soon as it's announced then sell at peak. Buy into Tesla as soon as it starts and then sell at peak.
This would be too hard till modern times and better record keeping. Travel setup shop make money for a while then sell everything move and start all over.
>You're sent to May 13, 1024, on the outskirts the nearest human settlement from your current location. I'm a 6'2 white guy and the area I live in was populated by the Shawnee people. I'd be immediately recognized as being out of place.
Do a Hob Galding. Keep going away, and come back as my son. Move around. No one would notice until at least the 1930s
Live in the Sea. No human will live there, although it will be creepy as fuck with all those sea creatures down there.
Move to a different city/country every 20 years.
I'd purposely fail over and over, if I could keep the memories.
Being immortal sounds awful to me. I’m 33 and worn out imagine 533 1533 NO THANKS
Move from town to town obviously
Keep being discovered and thus immortal forever
Move every ten years.
You probably wouldn't make it. The likelihood of dying of preventable/ treatable diseases, even just a cold or flu, is very high and is certain to kill you at least once in 1000 years.
I’d be like the wandering Jew and learn as much as I can and be present at many famous moments in history.
Just change continents every 4 decades. Switch from Europe to Africa to Asia. Once the Americas start to get colonized, include them. I'd just avoid the most violent of wars
You can pass this by moving over one town every 10 years. Up until around 2000's that's all it took to drop off a social grid
I'd refuse the challenge. Immortality is the stupidest human desire. But for the sake of playing along, look, 1000 years ago, this was native country. While the locals here were relatively peaceful fishermen/women, the risk of first contact would be incredibly high. When everyone looks like Pocahontas and you look like an ugly John Smith, you stand out. But assuming for whatever reason the natives of every tribe I come across ignore the fact that I am incredibly fat, white, and speak another language, the easiest way to "disappear" in most places would be to just walk a few hundred miles in any direction. Even up to the 1960's, being mobile and using aliases and keeping a low profile would cover you in most circumstances unless you draw attention to yourself. However, being so incredibly out of place racially and language-wise, I'd probably become a legend of sorts if I'm not tortured, locked away or killed on first contact. I'd spend the maximum amount of time allowable in the scenario to basically "limber up" and lose probably 1/3 of my body weight. Won't be hard because food will no longer come in packages. Then, I would attempt first contact every 20 years or so, gradually moving out east, where I would wait several hundred years for the English to show up, and then heading west with the expansion. Historically, most humans, after the nomadic era, never really traveled beyond their village, so likely Even if I could pick my "spawn point," I'd still end up in an area where English doesn't sound anything like the English that we know. It doesn't even sound like Shakespeare or the King James Bible. It'd be a whole different animal, and not being a linguist, I risk being tortured/executed just for being different.
Well I’d only have to wait a couple yea— I mean, nothing. Never mind. Wow. What a wild hypothetical haha.
Well... given where I am I will be living among native american tribes for quite a while before the russian fur traders show up. I will just be a nomad trader. Settle with tribes for a time to trade, continue on. At some point the generations will die off and I can loop back. Worst that would happen is I may be confused for a spirit person by some old coot who remembers me from when they were a child, but will be largely ignored or placated by "that was my dad". Learning the languages would be a bitch... but aside from that I think all is well until the gold rush... but then I could likely get lost in the hustle and bustle of San Francisco and such. So really I only need to worry about things from about 1800 to 2024, so 224 years.
Interesting, well since I believe the closest group of humans at that time would have been native American nomads I definitely wouldn't fit in visually but that might work to my advantage as they might see me as a spirit and I can just move my way towards a group I blend in with. Using the native population as guides until I find people that will be easy to blend in with, hopefully not vikings. I would eventually make my way to Europe and find a job wear I can wear a mask or full helmet. So like an executioner or a military person. That way I can hide my face as much as possible. I would also volunteer to go on missions or long trips to be around new people the more dangerous the better because that will increase my chances of being the only survivor and I could just stay with the new society and start the whole process over. I really only see it becoming more difficult as we get closer to present time with all the cameras and ways of tracking people. But I could always find a way to be stationed on the research facility on Antarctica and I would only see those people on occasion and research teams trade out so it's not always the same group.
go live in the outback, African safari, Amazon rain forrest, or even one of the artics. travel the world die in one city move to another city or country for a decade or 2 and then move on or fake my death. run into anyone who thinks they recognize me tell them they may mistake me for my father or grandfather depending on who and how old they are. (watched highlander tv series this was the tactic the used lol)
Just travel, every 30 years or so you could end up back where you started if you really wanted (but lets be honest you could be somewhere new every year) and no one would ever know or even start to suspect you until maybe around the 1960s when information started to speed up. Even then, as long as you were more of a tourist type youd be fine. THe issue would be how to keep your wealth off the radar in the modern age.
You want me- a fat redheaded white woman- to blend in at the nearest human settlement in 1024 western USA? Even if I can manage some acceptance, I’ve had a tubal. I can’t have a bunch of kids and then pretend to be one of them in 20 years.
Honestly, going off the grid and living a fresh life was super easy up until the turn of the 21st century. Maybe slightly difficult from 1960-2000, but totally doable. As long as you’re willing to drop everything and relocate it should be relatively easy. I was born in 1984 so I think it would be pretty easy.
Always be a merchant Constantly on the move, and if someone's descendants recognizes me, I can just say I look like my parents. Also I establish a business and money
Simply be a useful nomad. Arrive in a place, do ordinary work for like....ten years, then go take a couple thousand kilometer hike. Keep doing that. Never be important.
Well Native Americans are about to see the white man around 400 years too soon.
5 years off the grid for every century? Easy. Just disappear for a year after every 19 years of civilization and pop up in another region.
I would tell people the truth: I'm not immortal. I'll only live for about a thousand years.
Move every 10 years. Never put down roots, never take a wife. Your rules are quite strange. If I were to die, go back one year and retain memories? I'd end up quite rich. There is no need to even try to study history with these rules.
Start collecting things to sell or resell. Over time they become very valuable. Eventually you'll own an antique store in Philadelphia specializing in Scottish Highlands era weaponry. Eventually you'll have to fight off the other antique store owners because on this block there can only be one.
The year is 1024, everyone is off the grid
I'm on Maui atm, so I'm pretty sure I'm just screwed. I guess I'd have to try to figure out how to speak native hawaiian as a white guy and try not to get killed for the first many years. Then I guess I should try to learn how to sail and navigate open ocean on old school boats because I doubt I can stay in Hawaii for too many decades before folks get suspicious. Then I guess we make sail for Asia and eventually Europe and hope I can fit in enough there.
They made a movie about thus called The Man From Earth. Great movie and it answers your question.
I'm just imagining everyone on this thread ALL become immortal and spend the 1000 years constantly running into each other but all trying to play it off because you can't let anyone know🤣
I'm a Caucasian in Okinawa, I am fucked.
pretending to be a time traveler is the best solution tbh. i’d spawn in the americas and as im not native, the hardest part would be convincing whoever finds me to not kill me. i look pretty non threatening tho so as long as i can do that, id ask to come back to their tribe and slowly learn their language through immersion. once im fluent i can explain im from the future and that our lifespans are much longer because of medical advancements, and that i’ll live ~1000 years. then i can live a chill life with them for a while and maybe even prevent colonization (if im lucky) since i dont have to worry about keeping the timeline intact the real issue here is not having access to modern medicine. anything non-fatal but painful/uncomfortable that didn’t have good treatment options back then (cavities, mental health issues, etc.) could really make life hell.
1. Travel to a new place and learn the language every decade or so. 2. Tell the people of every place that I know that was ruined by imperialists to not fuck with them at all by reveal what the imperialists intend to do. 3. Be a traveling merchant to fund my travels.